A host of suns, the vault of the sky filled with glittering points, sheets of luminescence, patches of nacreous light, the blur of distant nebulae.
Suns around which circled a multitude of worlds on which men could walk free. Ships traversing the gulfs between them. The ebb and flow of restless life of which once she had been a part.
The glass lifted in a silent toast, a prayer and then, abruptly, she collapsed in a storm of weeping.
Chapter Four
Branchard had been right-the Styast was a wreck. The plates were worn, the hull leaked air, the control room a mass of patched and antiquated equipment, the engine room a disgrace.
But it was a ship in space and would have to serve.
Alone in his cabin Dumarest studied a scrap of paper on which were written the spacial coordinates of Tynar. Others were beneath them, the course they were now following, figures chosen by throwing dice. He threw them again, noting their value, using the figures shown to write a new set of figures.
A random selection impossible to predict. A means to send the Styast to a point the Cyclan could never anticipate.
He would throw again and then send the vessel to the nearest, busy world. A place from which he would move on to hide among the stars.
To hide and to continue his endless search.
Outside the cabin the ship was still. In the engine room Beint, the engineer, would be busy with his wine, slumped before his panel; the withered hand resting on the console beneath the flickering dials and flashing signal lamps.
Arbush was in the salon, an immobile figure frozen over his gilyre. Eglantine was asleep, a gross mound on his bunk; unaware of the cautiously opened door, its gentle closing. Shalout was in the steward's quarters, standing like a statue before the medical cabinet, vials before him, a hypogun in his hand. Like the minstrel he was immobile, caught in the magic of quick-time; his metabolism slowed to a fraction of normal so that, to him, an hour seemed but seconds.
A good time to do what had to be done.
In the control room Dumarest looked around. Beneath the screens bright with clustered stars the instruments clicked and whispered, as they guided the vessel through space. Touching the metal he could feel the faint but unmistakable vibration of the drive, the Erhaft field which drove them at a velocity against which the speed of light was a crawl.
The supra radio was where he had expected it to be.
He stooped, fingers turning the clamps, drawing out the instrument to expose the inner circuitry. A tug and a component was free. Another and the instrument was ruined unless there were replacement parts, and the possibility of that, on the Styast, was remote.
Back in the corridor Dumarest took a hypogun from his pocket, checked the loading and lifting it, aimed it at his throat. A touch of the trigger and quick-time was blasted through skin, fat and tissue into his blood. The lights dimmed a little and small noises became apparent. The thin, high sound of a plucked string, discordant, shrill. A clinking, the sound of indrawn breath.
Shalout busy with his medications.
He turned as Dumarest approached, sweeping a litter of vials back into their boxes, slamming the door of the cabinet as if ashamed at having been seen. The acrid odor he carried was accentuated by another, sharp, sweet; the stench of drugs to combat his infection, a fungoid growth picked up on some too-alien world.
He pursed his lips at the figures Dumarest gave him.
"Are you serious? Do you realize just where these coordinates will take us?"
"Just set course so as to arrive at that point."
"A long journey, Earl. Too long for the Styast to make. We haven't the supplies, even if the vessel would stand it. The captain-"
"Just do as I say, interrupted Dumarest. "I may give you another set of coordinates later."
Shalout said, shrewdly, "You are taking a random path, is that it? Are you afraid that someone could be following us? If they are, we won't be able to shake them."
"But you can tell if they are there."
"True," admitted the navigator. "The scanners would pick up the emissions of their drive. But they could have more efficient detectors than we carry." For a moment he stood, frowning, then shrugged. "Why do I concern myself? You have chartered the ship and have the right to dictate where it is to go. But if I could have a hint, a clue; I could, perhaps, shorten the journey."
Dumarest said, softly, "Do you know the way to Bonanza? To Earth?"
"Earth?" The navigator frowned. "Why should a planet be called that? Earth is dirt, ground, loam. All worlds have earth." Then his face cleared and, smiling, he said, "You have been listening to Arbush. His greeting song, as he calls it. A plethora of exotic names and hinted mysteries. Once, I believe, he worked on a tourist vessel and old habits die hard. Bear with him long enough and you will be tempted to follow him into a region of dreams. Nonsense, of course, but it beguiles the time."
"And Earth?"
"Does not exist. A myth which has risen from who can guess what reasons? The desire for a paradise, perhaps; a longing for a world in which there is no pain, no suffering, where all things are possible and all men are heroes. Another legendary world to add to the rest. You mentioned one, Bonanza. There are others, all equally legendary. None has substance."
Dumarest knew better, but he didn't press the matter. It was just another hope lost; another dead-end to add to the others.
He said, "The coordinates?"
"Our course is to be changed." Shalout looked again at the figures. The drugs he had taken had cleared his eyes a little from their rheum, had given him a false buoyancy. "What would we find if we followed these figures to the end?" he mused. "Would any of us be alive at the end of the journey? Would we find a world in which thoughts became things and a dream became reality? Is there such a world? Or would we find ourselves in a region torn and blasted by opposing forces, our generators ruined, the hull burst open, ourselves turned into radiant energy? Beings still aware, but freed of the confines of the flesh? An enticing concept, my friend, as I think you will agree."
The more so for a man dying of a foul disease, living on the euphoria of drugs, the charity of a captain.
Dumarest said, patiently, "The coordinates."
"Of course. I have ridden too long with the minstrel. His romancing has affected me; at times I even find myself using his words. Once, on Zendhal I-but never mind. A man should not dwell in the past. Yet it is true that Arbush seems to have a wealth of odd scraps of information."
"Of Earth, perhaps?"
Shalout shrugged. "That you must ask him."
* * * * *
He sat where Dumarest had last seen him, crouched over the table in the salon, busy with his gilyre. Frowning he tuned the strings, listened, tuned them again, plucked a rill of chords and impatiently pushed the instrument away.
"Useless," he said as Dumarest joined him. "The notes are too shrill, too high. Quick-time has its blessing, but the enjoyment of music is not one of them. You wish to play?"
"Later."
"Your fortune, then."
"It has been told before."
"But not by me." Arbush reached out and took Dumarest's right hand, turning it so as to study the palm. For a long moment he concentrated, the fingertip of his free hand tracing the lines, their conjunctions. "Were you a woman I would use flattery and the older you were, the more I would use. Promises of loves to come and riches to be gained. Good health and stirring adventures of the heart. Instead I-"
He broke off, leaning closer, a subtle change coming over him so that the mask of banter turned into a thing more serious.
"You have killed, Earl, often; that I can see. There is much blood on your hands. Blood and sadness and great loss. An unhappy childhood, a lonely time; and there are long journeys made under the shadow of extinction."